I came across this web page – upside-down-ternet – today while looking for some other technical information. I thought that this was great … just way too creative!

It seems that this guy found out that some neighbors were using his open wireless network. Now I have thought about this before … and thought of many of the security issues. For example, did you know that when you use someones open wireless network, they can “sniff” all of your non-SSL secured usernames and passwords from your applications? If you do not use SSL for your e-mail application, and you were using my open wireless network, I can get your e-mail account username and password. In fact … I have done this in the past. Likewise, any website that has you login and does not use SSL to secure it, is passing your username and password back and forth in the clear!

Anyhow … what this guy realized is that he could lock down the wireless, or have fun with the neighbors! The first thing he chose to do was redirect all of their web requests to a kitten website. So no matter where they tried to go on the Internet, they would end up at the kitten site.

His second ploy is even better. What he realized is that he could re-route all of their web browser requests through his own “proxy” … without them even knowing! What he played with was modifying the images on all of the web pages they viewed. His two examples are flipping all of the images … or blurring them!

The real important thing to realize here, is that when you choose to jump onto someone’s open wireless network, all of your Internet traffic is being routed through their network, and maybe their servers. If the person who owns that network is smart, or devious, there is a good chance that your communications are being monitored, recorded, or modified. You might want to think about it …